Playing the race card

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. – Martin Luther King Jr, August 28, 1963

After all the progress that has been made in this country regarding race since King spoke those words, some still cling to stereotypes of who white Americans are and how they think. King’s eloquence helped galvanize a nation against the bigotry of the day and his speech embodied an ideal that cut across racial lines. That ideal, to judge a person by who he is and not by his color, is a deeply held belief in the heart of a majority of Americans, regardless of race, creed, or color. Yet still, today, there are some that want us to judge a person by the color of their skin, not by the content of their character. Why?

The desire to have Obama judged by his skin tone, not by his accomplishments, is evident in today’s article by Eugene Robinson titled “Hard To Argue Obama Ire Not Based On Race.” Robinson allows his own ingrained leftist stereotypes to get the better of him as his analysis works hard to blame racism, not Obama for the countries sentiment. The problem is that President Obama has turned out to be a divisive and hyper partisan leader that doesn’t care what the people want – that fact is painfully obvious to a majority of America, but not to Obama supporters.

Let’s look at the analysis Mr. Robinson offers, and then we will provide some answers to his queries that never occurred to the author.

The first African-American president takes office, and almost immediately we see the birth of a big, passionate national movement

The movement started before President Obama took office. The seeds of the tea party were sewn by Bush’s tarp program. In fact if one goes all the way back to 2008 one finds that congresspeople were getting a lot of push back on tarp. President Obama and the new majorities in Congress did themselves no favors by doubling down on Bush’s unpopular bet with the deeply flawed stimulus bill while refusing to work with Republicans. (Note; telling the opposition party “I won” isn’t working with them)

One thing that struck me from the beginning about the Tea Party rhetoric is the idea of reclaiming something that has been taken away……………who’s in possession of the government right now, if not the American people? The non-American people? The un-American people?

This is rather obvious to the majority of Americans, but isn’t so obvious to the die hard Obama supporters like Robinson. Take our government back from the politicians that refuse to listen to the people. Town hall after town hall showed that Obamacare was massively unpopular, yet politicians voted for it. Even more galling is that the politicians admitted that they didn’t know what was in the bill, yet were absolutely sure it was the “right thing to do”. Americans called and complained in record numbers, yet their representatives didn’t listen. Promises of transparency were broken and the new way of doing things meant unprecedented backroom dealing that would be illegal if done by private enterprises. Is it any wonder that many felt that the government was no longer theirs?

The idea that unresponsive politicians are the target of tea party angst never occurs to Robinson. His own stereotypes blind him to the simple reality. One wonders what Robinson thinks was meant when thousands of people stand on the capitol steps and scream “can you hear us now?”

Bush was vilified by critics while he was in office, but not with the suggestion that somehow the government had been seized or usurped — that it had fallen into hands that were not those of “the American people.” Yet this is the Tea Party suggestion about Obama.

Is Robinson kidding? From the first days of the Bush administration the American people had to listing to leftist tripe about “not my president”. Democrats claimed that the 2000 election was illegitimate and that Bush had illegally “seized” power. If you had the “pleasure” of attending some of the larger anti-war rallies then you realize just how ridiculous Robinson’s statement is. One has to wonder just how short of a memory one has to have to read Robinson’s analysis and not find it seriously flawed.

Robinson wonders why people view Obama as elitist. What do you call a candidate that stereotypes small town American? What do you call a politician whose party kills DC school reform that gave some under privileged students the ability to attend private schools while he puts his children in expensive private school in DC? What do you call a politician that knows what is good for you, even when you say that you don’t want it? (hint)

Obama has made mistakes that rightly cost him political support. But I can’t help believing that the Tea Party’s rise was partly due to circumstances beyond his control — that he’s different from other presidents, and that the difference is his race.

Look at all of the items President Obama could have controlled that have upset so many Americans. He is the most aggressively left leading president in our history and the United States of America is a center right country. Perhaps it is our new foreign policy of kick our friends and acquiesce to our enemies? Perhaps using phrases like “‘we’re going to punish our enemies” doesn’t strike a bipartisanship tone? Perhaps it was all the rhetoric about honesty and integrity while relying on people like Rangel, Dodd, and Frank in congress. Perhaps it was the guarantee that joblessness wouldn’t rise above 8 percent if the stimulus was passed? Perhaps it was the promise that health care costs would go down? Perhaps it’s because Americans expect their politicians to at least attempt to deliver on promises of transparency, and bipartisanship not do the exact opposite? Race is a factor only among the fractions of one percent on the fringe of America. The President’s leadership is the problem, not his skin color.

Here is my thesis, and it doesn’t have anything to do with race; the democrats and President Obama are being judged on their actions. After all, that is the only way the American people can get to know the content of their character.